Racist Commercials. It's All The Fault Of The Berenstain Bears.

For several years now, the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl have featured organizations of the aggrieved calling press conferences to discuss racist commercials. This year there are two that I’m aware of, but I’m sure there are more. The offending companies are Coke and Volkswagen as follows.

The Coke commercial features a swarthy young man of middle eastern extraction on a camel in the middle of a desert. It is hot and he peers out on the horizon and sees a giant cold bottle of Coke, oasis-like in the distance. Suddenly a group of Mad-Max types come roaring by on motor cycles, racing towards the Coke. The race is soon joined by a busload of chorus girls equally thirsty and intent on getting there first. Meanwhile, our Arab man is seen tugging desperately on the reins of his camel who refuses to budge. When the contestants reach the bottle they discover that it was just a sign advertising Coke and that in fact the Coke bottle is another 50 miles down the road. End of ad.

I will now quote someone from something called the “American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee”….

“Why is it that Arabs are always shown as either oil-rich sheiks, terrorists, or belly dancers? The Coke commercial for the Super Bowl is racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish Camel Jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world.”

Ok. First of all, the Arab shown in this commercial was neither an oil-rich sheik, a terrorist, nor a belly dancer. He appeared to be an ordinary run of the mill Arab man, a Joe Camel, as it were. In addition, not only did he have no chance to “win” the bottle of Coke, nobody else did either, which was the whole point, as far as I could tell, of this moronic ad in the first place. The last thing I thought when watching this commercial was that it was possibly offensive to Arab-Americans. However it was offensive to viewers like me, expecting hilarious and inventive ads during the Super Bowl. Now, it WOULD have been racist, offensive, and much more awesome, if after the Mad-Max guys and the showgirls reached the Coke bottle, our sweaty Arab man reached into his vest and pressed a red button detonating a bomb hidden inside the bottle blowing them all to smithereens!

　

The second offending commercial features a dreary office building filled with drearily dressed middle-management Minnesotans. They crowd into a dreary elevator and someone bemoans how much they hate Mondays. Then a very white man in the back of the elevator speaks in a rich Jamaican accent, “Don’t worry mon, everyting is gonna be alllright!” Later we see four equally white men riding to lunch in a hot red VW Beatle, all deliriously happy and speaking fluent Jamaican. The tag line of the ad is…Get In. Get Happy.

A New York Times columnist instantly declared the commercial, ”blackface with voices”. A CNN critic was appalled at the suggestion that “all black people are happy”. All of the perpetually aggrieved media groups failed to ask the Jamaican government and it’s tourism officials what they thought of the condescending, racist suggestion that Jamaicans are happy. When some intrepid reporter finally did he discovered that they were thrilled with the commercial, and terribly “happy” about the publicity.

Now that the subject of racist ads has been broached by our media, I would like to get in on the action. Just the other day, I was greatly offended and perhaps permanently scared by another vicious ad by the people at Volkswagen. The scene is a suburb somewhere, peaceful streets, finely trimmed front yard, with a white man still wearing a shirt and tie throwing a baseball with his son. All is well until we see the father trying to teach his son “how” to throw the ball. He winds up and makes the most pathetically unathletic attempt at throwing a ball seen in this country since FDR threw out the first pitch in the 1938 World Series. Picture a girl in the midst of an epileptic seizure trying to throw a ball and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how bad it was. The tag line of the ad encourages the viewer to buy a Volkswagen so…“you can have something worthy of passing down to your son”.

Seldom in my life have I seen such a brutally racist ad. It plays on the vicious stereotype of the white suburban man’s lack of athletic ability as well as his total lack of self-awareness. This is just the latest in a long line of advertisements depicting white men as inept morons, clueless fathers, and shiftless bums who not only lack athleticism but are totally devoid of ambition, any sense of fashion, and the slightest inkling of romance. If an anthropologist from 200 years in the future were to appear on our shores and his only information about our culture was derived from watching television commercials, he would no doubt conclude that white men were the scourge of the planet.

This all started with the most subversively vile books ever written…The Berenstain Bears. I remember being at first slightly annoyed when I started reading them to my unsuspecting children. Every story was the same. Brother and Sister Bear encounter some problem. They first consult Papa Bear, the dumb as a box of rocks father, who invariably gives moronic advice that when followed results in a world of trouble. Enter Mama Bear, the mother/savior of Socratean brilliance who with characteristic patience, foreBEARance, and common sense saves the day by giving the “correct” advice. Of course, Sister Bear is twice the athlete of Brother Bear who shows early signs of being equally as helpless as the old man. The fact that this family of brown bears live in a tree is never explained, neither is the fact of what Mother Bear could possibly have seen in Father Bear back in the day that could have led her to want to marry such a clod. The first of these wretched titles appeared in 1962. America began to see commercials featuring inept manhood shortly thereafter. Coincidence? I think not!

I Will Never Complain About The Weather Again

My daughter has a dear friend from college named Leslie. They spent 5 weeks together in Australia on a mission trip back in the day, and have been fast friends ever since. Leslie spent a week in my house a few years back, and I found her to be a perfectly normal girl, smart, funny and delightful. But since graduating from college, something has gone terribly wrong.

This morning, on my Facebook wall comes news that Minot, North Dakota can look forward to a HIGH temperature today of -15 degrees, which will “feel” LIKE -49 degrees. Inexplicably, Leslie lives in Minot.

Now I’m sure that Minot has some virtues, I’m sure it’s hardy inhabitants are the salt of the earth. I even hear that nobody in Minot ever locks their doors at night. But, there’s a reason for that which has nothing to do with idyllic country living. Who in God’s name would be willing to venture out of doors in -20 degree weather to steal anything??

I think it’s high time that we apologized to the good people of North Dakota and ask them to get the hell out of there, that it was all a terrible mistake, a colossal misunderstanding. See, when Napoleon blundered into selling the place to Thomas Jefferson 200 years ago, the plan was to use it as the nations meat cooler. When Lewis and Clark passed through they were supposed to put up a huge sign that said, “ NOT FOR HUMAN HABITATION”, but they were so freaking cold they couldn’t afford to stop. I mean, the place is so cold, even South Dakotans think you guys are nuts.

What on earth does one do when it’s -20 all day? I suppose you could bundle up and drive into town to…oh, sorry, the car door is frozen shut. Well, you could boil some water and have a cup of tea with… oh, sorry, pipes are frozen. So, you end up getting on Facebook and showing all of your friends a picture of your local forecast with it’s hideous -49 degree wind chill and you ask, “Is this real life?”

No, Leslie. The answer is …no. Bless your heart.

Scandalous Headlines!!

Three headlines dominate my digital newspaper this morning:

“ A-Rod at Center of new Major League Steroid Scandal”

“Ray Lewis Linked To Banned Substance”

“ Democratic Senator Linked to Under-aged Dominican Prostitutes”

The first two headlines come as no surprise. I’ve always thought Alex Rodriguez capable of anything, and I never believed his carefully crafted admission that he had used steroids for only a brief period of time from 2003-2004. The only thing about the Ray Lewis story that surprised me was that the banned substance involved was “deer antler spray”. Who knew that spray derived from the antlers of deer could have such therapeutic qualities?

The third headline would have been a huge shocker to me, if only it were real. See, I made it up…not the story, but the headline. Let me explain.

Yes, Bob Menendez is a democrat, and he is a senator from New Jersey, and he most definitely is hip deep in a scandal involving raucous, alcohol-fueled sex parties with under aged prostitutes from the Dominican Republic. There’s even a well-heeled donor, a private jet and all sorts of inappropriate payments from said donor to the good senator. Trouble is, I really have to search the internet for any reporting on this story. When I do find something, the headline writers never see fit to list senator Menendez’s party affiliation. Probably an oversight, I’m sure. A simple Google search of past scandals involving republican lawmakers in similar embarrassment never fail to prominently feature “REPUBLICAN” in every headline.

The relative lack of journalistic interest in this particular story is baffling to me since it comes with the one sin that political beat writers usually love to hang on politicians…hypocrisy. You see, senator Menendez was the guy who was in such high dudgeon last year when the President’s security team had been caught procuring prostitutes during a trip to Columbia. The good senator went on record as saying that any secret service agents involved in the procurement of prostitutes should be fired immediately. You would think that some up and coming reporter at the New York Times or the Washington Post would be all over a story like this, one so rich with irony and sordidness. Perhaps there’s a Pulitzer to be won. But, this story is left to the likes of Drudge and Brietbart. See, Menendez is a loyal and valuable member of the team. He’s a liberal democrat, and well, its all very well and good to browbeat the Larry Craigs of the world, but Menendez’s vote is too valuable, and although his behavior would appear to be despicable, he’s “one of us”. There is hope, however. I remember the embarrassing story a year or so ago about the ill-named congressman Weiner, and his nude photo-texting controversy. For weeks, only Brietbart, Drudge and TMZ covered that one, but after awhile the mainstream boys were dragged kicking and screaming onto the scene, to report the degradations of a liberal politician. Let’s see how long it takes this time.

A Reply To A Facebook Slander

I find myself in a bit of a kerfuffle this morning as I read my Facebook page. Last night’s episode of Downton Abbey contained a dramatic plot twist that sent my household into fevered weeping and gnashing of teeth. I then went on Facebook to declare:

“ Dunnevant house in mourning over tonight’s episode of Downton Abbey. Why couldn’t it have been Edith??”

The comment box is now alive with complaints and accusations that I was guilty of spoiling the show for those who hadn’t yet watched. My own nephew insisting that I had posted a “spoiler”, with my niece piling on her frustration. The only person fair-minded enough to come to my defense was my daughter’s boyfriend, proving that he has mastered the art of the suck-up. In my defense, I will only point out the merely obvious fact that I gave away exactly NOTHING about last night’s episode. A closer examination of my post will exonerate me.

First of all, the fact that I declared my house “ in mourning “ was intentionally vague since it could have meant a number of things. Perhaps the Earl of Grantham had lost Matthew’s new money investing in Tulip futures, perhaps it was revealed that Mr. Bates was in fact a murderer and poor Anna was sent into despair, or perhaps the cable went out in the middle of the episode. “ In mourning “ cannot possibly be considered a spoiler by any fair-minded person.

Then I asked a rather innocuous question, “ why couldn’t it have been Edith?”. Again, I fail to see why this simple question is being vilified. It could have meant many things:

1. Why couldn’t it have been Edith…who was caught smoking pot with O’brien and Thomas?

2. Why couldn’t it have been Edith… who tripped over Carson’s gigantic feet and face-planted in the gravel driveway?

#. Why couldn’t it have been Edith… who started the food fight at dinner by tossing the kidney pie at the Dowager Countess?

　

The simple fact is that my status update gave away nothing, and my detractors owe me an apology. Besides, don’t we have bigger concerns about Downton? Shouldn’t our real worry be whether or not Julian Fellowes intends to insert a homosexual plot line into season 4? Could anything do more to disturb our Sunday night bliss than the wretched sight of Thomas and the new guy in bed?

Come on people. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here!

Where Has All The Music Gone?

My wife and I had a fascinating conversation last night about theme music for television shows. People of a certain age who can’t remember what we had for dinner last night can nonetheless recall with phonographic certainty the theme song from every television show we ever watched as kids. Its quite remarkable, really. On the ride home from taking dinner to Dad’s I would say the name of a TV show from our youth and within 10 seconds one of us would belt out the theme. If the song happened to have words, we knew them all, this despite the fact that neither of us have actually seen those shows in 30 years.

Ok, here’s a test. I have listed below several shows that came up in our discussion. If you were born between the years 1950 and 1965, take this test. How many of these theme songs can you remember, words included within thirty seconds of reading the names without the aid of Google?

1. I Love Lucy

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show

3. Beverly Hillbillies

4. Gilligan’s Island

5. Bonanza

5. The Brady Bunch

6. Hawaii Five-0

7. Gomer Pyle

8. Hogan’s Heroes

9. Sanford and Son

10. Happy Days

11. Andy Griffith

12. The Wild Wild West

　

I was a perfect 12 for 12. When was the last time I saw an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show? Oh, I would say 35 years, and yet I remember like it was yesterday old Dick coming home from work, messing with his tie and tripping over that stupid ottoman during the opening music. Amazing.

What started this conversation was our shared love of the theme song from Parenthood. We always DVR that show, so we can fast forward through the commercials, the show flows so much better that way. The odd thing is, when the theme song comes on, we never fast forward, never once. We listen to Bob Dylan’s terrible voice bark out the incredibly appropriate lyrics to “Forever Young”. We watch the beautiful scene there in the Braverman back yard unfold for the 60^th time, the soft string of lights hanging over the long picnic table in their back yard, the laughter coming from each member of the family. We see the grandchildren when they were younger, we watch them pass around the food, we envy them briefly for living in a State where this sort of occasion can happen 365 days out of the year. We see that clip and we hear that music and it reminds us of how marvelous it is to be a part of such a family, to share this life with brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. To see that clip and hear that music is to be reminded of why it is that we settled down to start a family in the first place.

For the most part, television shows have dropped the theme song, replacing it with bumper music, or in the case of Two and a Half Men, these stirring lyrics…”Men men men men men men men men …..” Someone suggested that since shows don’t last very long nowadays, maybe they don’t want to go to the expense of a fancy song. Don’t these producers understand the power of music?? What three shows over the last fifteen to twenty years have been the most successful? Cheers, Friends, and Frazier. All three with forever remembered theme music that people will be humming in their heads fifty years from now.

Bring back the music, Hollywood.

Resolution Checkup

At the beginning of this year I wrote about my plan for 2013. Primarily, it was about striving to live in the moment, neither obsessing over yesterday’s mistakes or worrying about tomorrow’s problems, but simply living all in, in the moment. As January winds down, its time to access my progress. Unfortunately, to do so would require me to obsess over yesterday’s failures so,…just kidding.

The first book I read this year was an autobiography of the quirky knuckleball pitcher from the New York Mets, R.A. Dickey. I’ve been fascinated with his story, a journeyman career minor leaguer who finally makes it to the show in his mid thirties then becomes an unhittable 20-6 as a thirty eight year old, practically unheard of in Major League baseball. Well, it turns out this this book wasn’t about baseball at all, rather it was about the amazing story of a guy who overcame the most horrible childhood imaginable, and with the help of an intense faith and otherworldly commitment to excellence manages to become a great pitcher. Along the way he climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro, for the fun and thrill of it. Ironically, one of the keys to his success is his learned talent for living “all in the present”. For Dickey that meant blocking out the two minute old memory of watching a hitter launch one of his pitches 400 feet into the left field stands for a three run homer quickly enough to be totally committed to his next pitch. No small feat. It’s the same with all great athletes. To be great requires an extremely short memory. The golfer who hooks his drive into the water, the quarterback who throws an interception, the point guard who misses a free throw, all have to quickly regain their composure because the game doesn’t end with one mistake, the next opportunity is coming up and they better be clear-headed and focused, not beating themselves up over what happened two minutes ago. Thankfully for the rest of us, life isn’t that dramatic.

The second book I read was Jon Meacham’s amazing biography of Thomas Jefferson, “The Art of Power”. This is the third biography of Jefferson I have read so I’m familiar with the subject, but in the expert hands of this Pulitzer Prize winning writer, he comes alive in new and fascinating ways. What has stuck me in this reading is the sheer intensity of the life Jefferson lived. It’s as if he determined at birth that he was going to wring every last drop of vitality out of his time on earth. He was going to see all that he could possibly see, learn all there was to learn, build all he could build, grow, plant, cultivate, imagine, discover, all while the day was called day. Thomas Jefferson was an architect, a planter, a writer, a philosopher, a musician, a scientist, a botanist, spoke five languages, and managed to serve his country as a Governor, an ambassador, Secretary of State, Vice-President and President. Reading about Jefferson always produces in me a sense of shame at my comparatively meager ambitions. The mere existence of a guy like Jefferson makes it difficult for me to lay on the sofa eating beef jerky, watching ESPN, without debilitating guilt. Thanks, Tom.

The point of all of this is, if one could combine the commitment to the moment of R.A. Dickey with the zest for life of Thomas Jefferson, one could do a lot worse in life. The good news is, so far this year, it’s working for me. I have been largely successful in living in the moment. My problem in the past hasn’t been beating myself up over failures as much as worrying too much about the future. So far, I’ve been able to let go of tomorrow for the most part. Tomorrow will come regardless of the amount of time I devote to it’s planning. For me, it’s not one day at a time, it’s more like one minute at a time.

I have been given much in this life. For reasons unknown to me, God has blessed me with success. Living in the moment with gratitude and wonder seems an appropriate response.

Snow Conspiracy?

They are calling for snow today. “They”, of course, are the weather forecasters on all the local channels, plus the people over at the Weather Channel. As is usually the case, this particular snow storm has been talked about since last week, such is the science of modern meteorology. Effective in 2013, the big shots in the weather world have decided to start naming snow storms like they name hurricanes. This particular storm must not be very menacing because as of this hour it is nameless.

Here in my corner of the cosmos, snow is greeted with a combination of childlike glee and unhinged panic. At the mere mention of snow in a forecast, hordes of west-enders descend on every grocery store west of the Boulevard, gobbling up every loaf of bread and gallon of milk on the shelves. I have long suspected that there was something nefarious about this spectacle. If the Ukrop’s brothers weren’t such fine upstanding Christian men, I might think that perhaps money was changing hands between the grocery titans and the weather forecasters in town.

Bobby Ukrop: Hey Jim. Uh, listen, we’ve had a pretty slow January over here, and we’re in a bit of a bind since we’re way overstocked on bread and milk. I was wondering if you could help us out.

Jim Duncan: Bobby, I’m surprised at you! You think you can just call here and ask me to cook up a phony snow forecast just so you can move some groceries?! I am a professional meteorologists for God’s sake, I have a reputation to think about, I have..

Bobby Ukrop: I’ll give you $25000 and a life long supply of White House rolls.

Jim Duncan: Done.

　

With the explosion of the internet in recent years, Richmond weather geeks have a new place to go for wild weather rumors. There’s this guy on Facebook with the initials DT. He runs some sort of weather consulting business for farmers and commodity traders. For 9 months of the year he labors in obscurity, but when winter arrives, he becomes a rock star. His Facebook page blows up. He’s famous for making outlandish forecasts of blizzards when the local TV guys are calling for a dusting. Like the proverbial broken clock who is at least right twice a day, DT has built his reputation on being famously right twice…three years ago. Ever since then people have considered him the go-to guy for snow. I hear him on the radio whenever snow is in the forecast, and more often than not he’s explaining why the local TV weather people are fools. It doesn’t seem to matter how often he’s fabulously wrong because he was the guy three years ago who nailed those two storms that nobody else saw coming. What a gig!

Well, I’m prepared for whatever comes our way today. There’s milk in the fridge, bread in the pantry, and as long as we don’t lose our internet connection, lots of great entertainment on DT’s Facebook page.